Topic: Need help with a magic hammer

[Mhairtrym]

I need some suggestions/ideas for a magic hammer for a character.

This character is a Dwarven Priest from the around the Brass stairs area.  When working the background used the Heroes of Legend book and got a few interesting results trying to work in.  He had a companion, animate object, and magic item.

So using all his background to get a magic Hammer with High Intelligence, but not sure on the abilities, also wanted this to be his weapon he would use throughout his career.  After all it is more than a weapon but a companion.  So I had originally wanted to give it +20 magic bonus to begin with with something else.  Part of his history suggested he became well known and famous for his smithing skills after aquiring the hammer, earining some extra cash to begin with.  However depending on what level he actually begins playing as did not want this to be too powerful.

I had thought to give it the magic bonus to his smithing skills when the hammer was used, but also thought witht he intelligence it might use some alchemy magic to help.  Also grand campaign had some items that got better over time.  Which would be nice.  Using RMSS rules for the most part. 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[markc]

 Heroes of Legend?

 Well I might split it into to two items. The first being smithing tools that contain's the spirit of a Great Past Dwarven Smith, who has knowledge of the lost smithing arts. The spirit will only give his knowledge to one who is worthy of his standards. So the spirit will have the wielder go on a few quests to prove his worthiness. Some of the quests will be to acquire equipment that the smith spirit hid before his passing and others to gather material for the wielders greatest creation. Or maybe the spirit will have the wielder create a series of items for something. Maybe even a new threat that he saw from the past but knew he would be unable to help himself so he created a set of forging tools to help those in the future. You can also have a set forging tools that need to be found as well as a location that is magically attuned for the item to be created. Maybe you can use the info in the RM2 Elemental Companion or the RMSS Elemental Companion: Fire and Ice for details on special forging equipment or locations. I really like the old RM2 EC for the Elemental Forges and the materials thay can create. The book also has info for different levels of material.

 For the hammer maybe it is a linked item to the forging tools or maybe just on its own. Maybe the forging tools spirit would only talk when the same person had the hammer. Sort of like a set of items that each hold a part of the spirits essence, intelligence, knowledge and power. I like the above idea if it fits in your game. But if your game is a bit more low magic them go with the items allow the dead dwarf to speak from beyond to help the player or teach the player.   

MDC

[metallion]

Some ideas:

Give it a bonus equal to a percentage of his smithing skill (e.g. if he's got smithing +50, it's +5, if he's got smithing +150, it's +15)

Alternately, leave his smithing skill alone, but let shorten the period over which the spells have to be cast be shortened by 10%  THe higher level he is, the more powerful alchemies he'll do, the bigger the discounts.

[Mhairtrym]

Markc hmm I like those quest ideas, I was going back and forth between an ancestor alchemist, or famous smith. Or something tied his god Iorak. 

Metallion that is not a bad way to do it, even seems logical.

One question though what information could such a companion provide?  You have this hammer with the spirit of the great Dwarven smith Thaysek Runehammer, besides the skill as a smith he had to be knowledgable about metals and best ways to prepare them.  Would he have lore skill kniwledge he could provide?  Then there is the question with an intelligent weapon can it view the outside world? say by using the wielders senses?  I would probable have the hammer have the ability to not work or work against wielders it did not like.

[markc]

 Yes I would have the item be intelligent or only intelligent when a number of items are together, that is if you use the idea of the spirit being spread among a number of items.
 I would create the spirit as a PC and let him provide info based on his skills.

 What I might do is allow the PC to spend DP on some special abilities that have to do with the spirit. So maybe 2-4 DP allow the spirit to use the wielders senses. 2-4 DP the spirit can use the wielders body, ie sub the spirits skill rating for the wielders. Or maybe have those abilities be ranked based and carry a penalty. So lets say there are 5 ranks in the spirit sense skill, and rank 1 is use the spirit can use the wielders senses at -40, rank 2 the penalty is -30. Etc up till the rank 5 ability with no penalty. 

MDC

[Mhairtrym]

I will have to consider the multipy items, But I was having issues with a magic hammer as weapon and one that is a tool used to make items. 
But the quest to find other items made by the dwarven smith seems a good explanation on why he left his home, hmm would be nice to have a sorta dwarven history of Jaimain, for ideas where other older dwarven civilizations could be found. 
Yeah not a bad idea for the spending DP as well. Could also use the spirit as an instructor teaching him certain skills.

What makes more sense for Shadow world?  A Dwarven ancestor type of worship? or Iorak the smith, one of the lords of Orphan?

[markc]

 I am not the one to ask as I an not even close to an expert on SW. In fact you have probably more knowledge of SW than I do.
 But maybe PM some of the guy's that are working on the SW Players Guide or I know there is a special SW site that you might as the Q on.
 If all else fails just make it up.

 Another option I don't think I gave you was have the spirit gain DP as if he was a player. And then let the spirit spend his own DP on spirity powers or maybe to spend DP to regain what he knew in life. In other words the spirit has a complete PC sheet and as the party gain exp so does he. But you have a road map of what the spirit will eventually have. You can also use this to have the spirit suddenly remember important things as he grows in consciousness.
 
 The one thing I can see is that other players may get a little jealous at the PC hogging the spotlight. So you may have to talk to them about just where the campaign will eventually go. Or maybe it is the main theme of the campaign.

MDC

[TomOBedlam]

What makes more sense for Shadow world?  A Dwarven ancestor type of worship? or Iorak the smith, one of the lords of Orphan?

I would go with both. Someone that speaks as a dwarven ancestor, but is actually Iorak. (For precedence - see how Eissa posed as the main god for the Emerian Empire).

I'm also pondering how to make a magic item that the user can grow with...
Options in your case includes:
- The spirit is training its owner, giving lower cost on smithing, or adding one more point (2/6 becomes 2/6/6 for eample)
- If the user is not a spell caster, the item will cast alchemy related spells up to the users level (The item grows with the user)
- Give a +5 bonus per 5 ranks of the users skill (Will become very powerful at 30+ ranks...)
- Have Tiers of power based on "number of levels that the owner has had the hammer", with really powerful effects after 15 levels.

[markc]

 TomOBedlam;
 Some options for weapon growth with PC:
1) Create the spirit as a PC and keep track of the levels and let the spirit grow in level as the PC does. Or have the spirit grow in some multiple of the PC's level. So at 1st the spirit is 2nd level, at 2nd the spirit is 4th level, etc. 
2) Same as above but let the spirit roll dice like gaining a spell list and have him grow in level equal to the spell limit. So at the beginning of the game the spirit is 5th level and gets a specific number of points to pay for level gain and they roll d100 add the vale to see if they gain the next highest tier of levels.
3) Have the spirit gain levels as the PC finds other items of the smith. So hammer spirit is 5th level, find girdle adds +2 levele, boots +1 level, gauntlets +3 levels, helm +5 levels, apron +3 levels, tongs +1 level, find forge he built +10 levels while in that location.\
4) Unlock spirit levels after specific actions. ie bind a fire spirit and do X with it. Now the spirit remembers more of its self and advances from level 10 to 15th.

Other options:
1) Give the PC extra DP they can only spend in a specific set of skills. Keep good records so you can see what happens.
2) Let the item cast the spells through the PC. ie the spirit has to be attuned to the wielder to be able to dram mana through him. ie everybody holds small amount of mana but it does not stay with them. The spirit can take those small bits and store them as a spell caster.
3) Give a set amount of DP to gain spells like a spell caster. But can only be cast while he has the item. You can also get the spirit to be unhappy with the wielder and refuse to cast spells.
4) Use some abstract system to allow the caster to cast spells. ie the wielder cuts himself for 20 hits and can now cast spells to 20th level. Or maybe a sacrifice something to cast spells.
5) I am not that up on RM rituals but maybe you use those as a guide and the spirit aids the PC in the ritual.

Keep them coming the ideas are flowing. I hope they are or might be helpful.
 I have always loved multi items or items that can do multiple things. Such as the old Rod of Lordly Might. Or maybe collecting the dragon orbs.

 Also does not SW have powerful items like this? You also may ask around as at one time there was going to be a treasure guide for SW. If it did not make it to print maybe some of the info is still out there with someone.
MDC

[Mhairtrym]

Also does not SW have powerful items like this? You also may ask around as at one time there was going to be a treasure guide for SW. If it did not make it to print maybe some of the info is still out there with someone.

Yes there is, and if you look at the characters created for the grand campaign they have items that grow in power.  One of them has an artifact the Phoenix amulet, but they do not get access to most of it's abilities until later.  I have not used to many intelligent items in RM, this dwarven priest character is a fanactic, why not after all he carries an hammer blessed by his god or ancestors.  I think since all his background is put into this item, it should be nice but do not want it to start off overpowering, also later I do not want them tossing it if they come across something else, so should it should grow.  Rm2 alchemy book had options for items to give access to parts of a list and even PP pools.  Which is nice as the item has control over when these are used, and how.  Hence the idea of access to an alchemist list, something that when the item cast the spells made the user able to create a few items he would not of been able to make.  Which is what TomOBedlam suggesed as well.

When I started I had +20 magic Hammer intelligent,  think magic level should lower at first?  I also used the +20 magic weapon as guide to determine what level of alchemist the dwarven spirit would need to be.

[markc]

 In the past I have had weapons have add'ons such as gems, special hilt pieces, gloves, etc. That way the item gains in power when the find the add'ons.
MDC 

[Mhairtrym]

hmm a gauntlet to go with the hammer, that might work, I was still thinking along the idea of works the smith had made perhaps his spirit is spread across multiply items, hence the spirit will not be at his full strength until all the items get collected.

[markc]

 Also with the hammer you have the haft and the head maybe you could add some more or lookup just what you need to build a war hammer.
MDC

[damilano]

It would be kind of cool if the hammer spoke whenever it smote a foe with a good hit:

"Ha!  How's that shoulder feel now?"
"Oy!  Right in the knot!"
"That'll knock the wind outta ya, you miserable blighter!"

Or on a fumble:

"Nice one, laddie!  Now let's try hitting the enemy!"

Or

(flying out of wielder's hand):  "Whoa-o-o-o-o-o!  Why is everything spi-i-i-i-i-nning?"

CMC

[Mhairtrym]

Lol, had me thinking of a game, I had one where the weapon would talk and make such comments.

[egdcltd]

I'm sure I read an article somewhere (Dragon?) about intelligent weapons like that.

[Mhairtrym]

I have some older issues that had that sort of thing, but the other system does things slightly different. 

I went through all my Middle-Earth books, and RM2 material as well to find ideas.  There was an ancient hammer for the dwarves in the Middle-Earth books, I am not at home so not sure of the name it was not intelligent but it did grant the user a huge boost in smithing skills.  In this case might of been like +75, but it was not really a weapon at all.  It was very high boost, but got me thinking about boosting the smith skills. 

I was almost thinking along the idea of an legacy item.

[egdcltd]

I'm sure I read an article somewhere (Dragon?) about intelligent weapons like that.

Found an article. Dragon #191, "Master of the Sword"

[markc]

 I also thought of some stuff before I feel a sleep a few nights ago. I just found the paper I had quickly scribbled the notes onto.

1) The Hammer is searching for the right wielder. That could be the player or it could be someone else.
2) You could lists some stuff that the hammer is looking for and then make sure the player does those things in future games. So he becomes the person who the hammer is searching for.

MDC